The Black Swan

Even now, in an era free of infectious diseases but full of man-made chemicals, scientists, and the public share an unthinking preference for infectious over noninfectious pathogens. Both groups share an obsolete microphobia but tolerate the use or even indulge in the consumption of numerous recreational and medical drugs. Moreover, progressive scientists and policymakers are not interested in recreational and medical drugs and man-made environmental toxins as causes of disease, because the mechanisms of pathogenesis are predictable. Further, prevention of drug diseases is scientifically trivial and commercially unattractive.

Peter H. Duesberg, Inventing The Aids Virus.

I got onto this somewhat obscure book after reading about the banishment of Duesberg during the AIDS crisis of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s in Robert Kennedy’s book, The Real Anthony Fauci. Both books are an eye-opening look at the machinations, malfeasance, corruption and incompetence that is common place in the most powerful health institutes in the USA, namely the FDA, the NIH, and the CDC. Only a fool would think that health institutes in other countries, such as the ATAGI in Australia operate much differently.

In addition to revealing fraud and corruption in the NIH, Duesberg takes away the veil on peer-reviewed science. More and more in the modern world I get the sense that ordinary people believe that science is an ever-rising trajectory of knowledge and excellence, beatifically set apart from the grubby emotions that seethe among groups of humans everywhere. Science, particularly medical science is anything but a holy pursuit for knowledge instead it is deceptive, messy, often fraudulent, business beset by the normal human biases that affect everything and overwhelming corrupted by incentives (mostly money but also prestige – which brings money). Peer review, held out by many as the gold standard to winnow out corruption, fraud, and bad science is in fact as plagued by the former (corruption, fraud and bad science) as any other human endeavour.

Science, rather than progressing by consensus as many would like to believe, actually progresses by heretical questioning of the dominant narrative. The science is “never settled” because the scientific method can only provide evidence in support of a hypothesis, never absolute proof. This is as basic as the metaphor of the black swan. Prior to the “discovery” of Australia, all swans were believed to be white, however the discovery of one black swan is enough to discredit the truism that all swans are white.

Duesberg was a black swan swimming among white swans and, as such, suffered career ending ostracism for daring to question the dominant (and poorly proven at the time, possibly even now?) narrative that AIDS was a new disease caused by HIV. The treatment of Duesberg by the scientific community was not and is not an unusual aberration. Censorship of science or even questioning the dominant scientific narrative continues apace to this day and may have even become more rampant with the advent of “fact checkers” and cancel culture.

Putting aside whether or not HIV is the cause of AIDS, Duesberg’s book raises two critically important issues for the advancement of human kind, one is the toxic and paralysing group think that stifled any enquiry that did not fit the narrative and the other is less obvious but may be more damaging in the long run and that is the opportunity cost of silencing the best and brightest independent thinkers among us.

Human innovation and creativity has always leapt ahead in great strides when we have allowed the black swans amongst us to have free range to think, experiment and create. When we stifle any one of these rare and valuable humans we lose so much more than we can ever imagine.